March 26, 2016
Chapter 10
Days 21,
22 & 23
Problems on the road.
Lilyana’s bike had some issues with the gears. We started early our day and rode 30km to go to the city Thanh Hoa where we were told the address of a good bicycle shop. They fixed the gears and we were in a hurry to go further with our plan. Just as we went out of the city I had a flat tire. Ok, please don’t laugh, but yes, none of us actually knows well (I underline well!) how to take off the rare wheel. We asked google, read some advice and we managed to remove it. We changed the inner tube and as we started pumping it we realised that the pump we brought with us didn’t work. It’s an old pump from Holland, so I trusted it is in good state. But it was damaged and pumping was not possible at all. After a while of vain efforts a van with two guys stopped and offered us help. They took my wheel and tires, went to the village, put some air in and came back. And then for the big problem: we couldn’t fix the wheel back at the bicycle. We tried, the boys tried, more people stopped to help, they tried... and none of us succeeded. We watched youtube videos on the side of the road, followed step by step guides, and though we were doing exactly as shown, there was still a problem. At the end, I left Lilyana waiting there, on the road, while the guys took me back to the bicycle shop in town. There was something stuck and it took a while for the bike mechanics to take it out and put the wheel back.
All these problems took us more than 3 hours from our day. Desperately I was looking at the clock and thinking how little we had cycled. We had the rest of the afternoon and tried to catch up with the program.
It was a difficult noisy bad route, with heavy trucks riding both sides with great speed, houses all along the way. And like that we rode for 50km until the sun started setting down. At the end of the afternoon, we switched to a different road, less busy and noisy. And soon after we reached a beautiful big lake and area with just a few houses. We found a good place to sleep by the side of the lake and our day with problems finished well after all. As I got off the bike I felt like a cowboy getting off his horse after a long day riding in the Wild West. Thick cover of dust lied on my clothes, my face, inside my ears and eyes.
On the 20th day of the trip, we arrived in the city Buôn Ma Thuột, the capital city of Đắk Lắk province. We were still in the Central Highlands of Vietnam and the city appeared quite nice. Not particularly big nor attractive, but it looked like Vietnam as I knew it: a lot of lights, noise, traffic, many little shops, no (or not much) garbage on the street. We stayed there one day extra. We found a good bakery and restaurants, we slept and we ate. Eating whatever we can find on stops along the road is maybe an interesting cultural and culinary experience for a day or a week, but after 20 days we started feeling desperate for some diversity in our diet.
I also took the time to prepare for our final week and one last ascent of the Vietnamese mountain. I was a little anxious about the mountains around Da Lat. I knew it was going to be the highest point of our trip in terms of gaining elevation. Were we going to make it? How were we going to cope with the heat?
On day 22 we did only 50 km and we stayed at a small village Liên Sơn for the night. The next possibility for a hotel was going to be on the other side of the mountain, over 100 km away.
Finally day 23 came. I felt like that was it, the day of the big test for which you have been preparing for long time. We got up extra early, and we were on our bikes in the dark at 4 a.m. It was going to be a race with the sun. How many kilometers, how far will we get before it gets too hot? In fact, it never got unbearably hot as previous days in the mountain. The temperature reached at its maximum a very pleasant 29 degrees Celsius. The road, although in poor state, was designed in such a way that you climb up slowly in a zig-zag. Around us a mixed broadleaf and conifer forest kept us shade. A fresh air and a whiff of pine trees, and I was as happy as one can be. Although a very long ascent, it was probably the easiest and most pleasant we have done so far. We were at the top around 2 p.m. and then it was a dangerously steep slope down. Within minutes we have lost much of the altitude we have gained with so much efforts, and the greatest reward appeared on the road. For the first time since 23 days we saw the sign ‘299 km left to HCMC’.
Saigon, here we come!